::: Demand Bishop William Murphy Resign! :::
The Dirt on Bishop William Murphy
On Wednesday, July 23, 2003, the office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued its Grand Jury report on "The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston".
1.According to the Report, Bishop Murphy played a key role in the failure to protect the children. As a consequence, he has abdicated his moral authority:
With regard to Bishop William Murphy, now of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, the report says:
And, even with undeniable information available to him on the risk of recidivism, Bishop Murphy continued to place a higher priority on preventing scandal and providing support to alleged abusers than on protecting children from sexual abuse. (P.39)
2. Bishop Murphy misrepresented his role in the cover-up.
In his "Report to the Diocese ?Part one," (TLIC 7/2/03) Bishop Murphy says that a Delegate (at one time a priest also named William Murphy) was responsible for handling cases of sex abuse, and that the Delegate reported directly to the Cardinal. However, the Attorney General�s Report says that?"Although Cardinal Law delegated responsibility for handling clergy sexual abuse matters, his senior managers [i.e. bishops] kept the Cardinal apprised of such matters either directly or through the Vicar of Administration, who supervised the ... Delegate." (P 31) Bishop Murphy himself became Vicar of Administration in 1993 [to 2001]. (P 38)
The Report also says that the "Delegate ... sometimes discussed clergy sexual abuse matters directly with the Cardinal, and on other occasions conveyed information to the Cardinal through Bishop Murphy."(P 38) The report further says that the Delegate "�generally kept both the Cardinal and Bishop Murphy apprised of significant clergy sexual abuse matters." (P 48)
The report thus clearly contradicts Bishop Murphy�s allegation that he was bypassed in the reporting of sexual abuse cases. Indeed, "There is overwhelming evidence that for many years Cardinal Law and his senior managers* had direct, actual knowledge that substantial numbers of children in the Archdiocese had been sexually abused by substantial numbers of priests. Any claim by the Cardinal or the Archdiocese�s senior managers that they did not know about the abuse suffered by, or the continuing threat to, children in the Archdiocese is simply not credible." (P. 25) In addition: "Top Archdiocese officials regularly addressed and supported the perceived needs of offending priests more than the needs of children who had been, or were at risk of being, abused." (P. 30) (emphasis supplied)
* Bishop Murphy is identified in the report as a senior manager and a top archdiocese official.
3. Bishop Murphy abdicated his duty to protect the children by ignoring the criminal nature of child abuse.
In denouncing Bishop Murphy�s actions, the Report states:
"The problem was compounded because Bishop Murphy failed to recognize clergy sexual abuse of children as conduct deserving an investigation and prosecution by public authorities. Instead he viewed such crimes committed by priests as conduct deserving an internal pastoral response." (P. 39)
4.Bishop Murphy showed a regrettable lapse of judgment when he assigned an alleged abuser to oversee abusers.
In an apparent lapse of judgment, Bishop Murphy was involved in having a priest named Melvin Surrette, who had "been accused himself of sexually abusing children, to be Assistant Delegate responsible for arranging suitable job placements for priests found to have engaged in sexual abuse of children." (P.38) The Attorney General�s report further comments that, "The Archdiocese documents relating to Surrette�s assignment do not show any consideration of the propriety of having a man accused of sexually abusing children significantly involved in finding suitable job placements for other alleged abusers. Further, there appears to have been no appreciation of the inherent conflict of interest or appearance of impropriety in having a priest under investigation by the Delegate working as Assistant to the Delegate."(39)
Even CATHOLICS THEMSELVES AGREE that Bishops John McCormack, Manchester, N.H.; Thomas Daily, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Robert Banks, Green Bay, Wis.; William Murphy, Rockville Centre, N.Y.; and Archbishop Alfred Hughes, New Orleans, should resign.
Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly�s 76-page report on the Boston archdiocese�s handling of priestly sexual abuse places blame for the crisis in the Boston church squarely where it belongs: with the former archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law, his predecessors, and the auxiliary bishops responsible for day to day management of the archdiocese.
The mistreatment of children was so massive and so prolonged that it borders on the unbelievable,?says Reilly�s report. �For decades cardinals, bishops and others in positions of authority within the archdiocese chose to protect the image and reputation of their institution rather than the safety and well-being of children.?
No one will go to jail as a result of Reilly�s 16-month investigation, though his report is scathing. The laws on the books at the time make it impossible to seek indictments, Reilly said.
The aforementioned bishops -- auxiliaries under Law, whose careers benefited from his patronage -- stand accused of stymieing criminal investigations, shuffling known predators to child-rich environments, demonstrating undue respect for the rights of molesters over the kids they abused, failing to inform parishes of the predators in their midst, transferring abusers out of Boston, and accepting non-Boston abusive priests into the archdiocese.
Somehow, it never occurred to these men that child rape is a crime that should be reported to the police, whether or not members of the clergy were �mandatory reporters?under the law. That loophole became a noose for the 1,000-plus children abused by Boston priests.
Any other institution in this society -- government, business, nonprofit -- would rightly show these men the door. Enron was a catastrophe, but Ken Lay is now unemployed; Howell Raines no longer edits The New York Times. It�s called accountability.
At their June 2002 meeting in Dallas, and their subsequent Washington gathering in November of that year, the U.S. bishops took a number of positive and necessary steps. A national board to investigate the causes of the crisis was established, programs were put into place to protect children, and procedures were promulgated to remove known abusers from the priesthood.
But incomprehensibly the bishops, both individually and collectively, remain loath to take responsibility for their own managerial and pastoral malpractice. Instead, they maintain to the utter disbelief of Catholics throughout the nation, that blame lies solely with the �small percentage?of priests who abused children. And to the degree culpability goes up the chain of command, they tell us, bishops made mistakes of the heart, attending generously to the needs and hurts of their brother priests.
The attorney general�s report puts the lie to this weak defense: �Any claim by the cardinal or the archdiocese�s senior managers that they did not know about the abuse suffered by, or the continuing threat to, children in the archdiocese is simply not credible.?
Taken from the National Catholic Reporter, August 1, 2003
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